Thank you madam chair and committee members. I very much appreciate you inviting the Representative and I to spend time a little bit of time with you on a proposal that I support. I’d like to do two things, one: share some thoughts regarding the legality of the proposal in front of you and then also just give you some personal thoughts based on my own experience related to campaign finance. But starting on the premise that I think we all probably share - that campaign finance reform is necessary, it’s necessary to protect this tsunami of huge wealth and out of state interests that cross our borders washing out the voices of everyday Oregon citizens.

And it’s true that it would be a better option if we had a statewide standard. The legislature has had for a number of sessions those kind of proposals before it and has sat on its hands.

If they were to decide in the future to pass something what you do with this would neither help or not help whatever the legislature does in the future. So I don’t think your passage of this proposal is necessarily a detriment to what the legislature may do.What I can tell you is that what I have always appreciated about this community both the city of Portland and Multnomah County is that you act. You acted on paid sick days. You’ve acted for fairer wages. You’ve acted for equality in housing and public accommodations. You don’t wait for the state legislature You don’t want for Congress. You do what the citizens of this community need. I think campaign finance reform should be viewed in the same way.Now as a civil rights and a constitutional lawyer prior to my public service I keep a very careful eye on proposals such as this and I’ve read this one very carefully. This proposal is constitutional under state law and under federal law. The Oregon free speech clause is very similar to the free speech clause in 36 other states around the country. None of those other state have ever ruled that campaign donations violate their free speech clause. In fact, even though while nearly 20 years ago the Oregon Supreme Court did make a ruling like that more recent decisions by the court have suggested that maybe there would be a different outcome today and that that would not be repeated. I think the same is true for the Citizen’s United decision. You don’t need to be a law school professor or a constitutional scholar to know that corporations are not people and money is not free speech.But the legal analysis would go like this: Let’s assume hypothetically that money is free speech and that those court decisions are in some way correct. The place where the Supreme Court in Oregon went wrong nearly 20 years ago and where the US Supreme Court went wrong in Citizen’s United. is that even if money were free speech there are permissible restrictions on free speech if there is a compelling reasons to restrict the speech and that analysis was never thoroughly used in either of those decisions which is why I believe that both decisions are wrong.So the question is is there a compelling reason for you to act? All you have to do is spend one minute watching Washington DC. to see the way huge money stymies the democracy to know that there is a compelling reason for us to act and to act now. And so even for those of you that may be thinking this is a legally tricky thing I would suggest to you this. Someday that Citizen’s United decision is going to be overturned. Someday that 20 year old Supreme Court decision from Oregon that’s in doubt under it’s more recent decisions is going to be overturned, too.

I would suggest to be the leaders that you have always been and put up the case that might get tested that eventually leads to the overturning of those decisions. Let’s have it be an Oregon case that tests whether or not corporations are really people and money is really free speech.Now I want to make a comment too from a more personal nature not the legal nature about campaign finance limits because I’ve run in various elections myself since 1998. I have been called repeatedly for many years like many of you for campaign donations from people that are running. I’ve spent my fair share of time in a call room. And I’ve watched the same from my colleagues. It is a very interesting thing that happens to people when they spend inordinate amount of time in a call room calling people for money. You see you go into public service with friendships, with relationships, with close ties to your family members, and I’m not saying those things go away, but when you spend enough time in a room simply calling people and asking them for something, asking them for money which is not an easy thing for a lot of people to do. I have seen it in others I serve with that it starts to skew your perspective of relationships over time. You tend to be thinking in terms of political allies, in terms of what certain people can get for you in order to advance. You think in terms of what do I need to stay strong in the future, who do I need around me, which in my opinion is the antithesis of the kind of relationships that we want people in public service building. I think oftentimes it’s the antithesis of dedicating yourself to the analysis of policy and how that effects the people you serve.And I’m not saying that people go into public service with an intent that’s bad or even when they are in the middle of making those kind of calls that they’re doing something that’s wrong But I’m saying that I’m seeing in my colleagues what I think is the loss of the ability to build real human relationships, a little bit of the loss of humanity which is the reason for serving in the first place because your relationship become skewed to something different.For me campaign finance limits is partially about stopping the huge wash of wealth that drowns out voices but the other part of it for me which is why I think this is a smart proposal for you is because I think it helps your public servants begin focusing on humanity again and not so much on where the next dollar is going to come from.Whenever you analyze free speech it always contemplates an analysis of what the public interest is and not just the individual interest. I think this is a perfect example where you let local voters decide whether or not they want big money out of their political system. Give them a vote on the proposal.And then lastly Madam Chair I know that Dr. Sharon Meieran who couldn’t make it here right at the beginning of the meeting wanted to testify and at your discretion Madam Chair because the topic has come up several times about how this effects women running for county offices she is the one we have in the room who is a woman, who is running for county commission and I think may have - I don’t know what she’s going to say but I’m guessing it may be of great value given the way the discussion has gone.With that, thank you Madam chair and thank you committee for hearing us.

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